Actor, Playwright Sam Mossler Dies At 45: Report

SARASOTA, FL — Sarasota actor and playwright Sam Mossler died suddenly in his sleep on Wednesday, the Herald-Tribune reported. He was 45.

Though his cause of death is unknown, his girlfriend and mother said that he hadn’t been sick recently and was “in good health,” reports said.

He got his start at the Florida Studio Theatre, joining its Kids Komedy troupe in the early 1980s when he was a student at Booker High School’s Visual and Performing Arts Center. According to his website, FST made an impact on the budding thespian.

Studying under Kate Alexander, he learned “about emotional accessibility, subtlety and earnest process.” He also studied with Dana Helfrich and Kris McGaha at FST, learning from them “about pratfalls, double takes, triple takes, spit takes, slow burns and double talk.”

Mossler went on to study acting at Florida State University, graduating in 1997. On his website, he said this is when he got “serious” about his theater work.

He landed his first regional gig, performing in “Death of a Salesman,” in 1998. Not long after this, he moved to New York City.

For three years, he immersed himself in the life of a stage actor. Performances brought him to New York, Connecticut, Indiana and Florida.

“With plenty of bartending in between,” he wrote on his website.

Mossler returned to Florida from 2005 to 2008, teaching playwriting and acting workshops in public schools throughout the state. From there, he landed in Los Angeles from 2009 to 2014. During his time there, he wrote three screenplays, a stage play and other shorter works.

In 2015, his screenplay “Og’s Utopia” brought him to the Austin Film Festival, where he made it to the semi-finals in comedy. His next screenplay, “Walter Ruddy in Repose or The Green Flash,” made it to the second round at AFF.

By 2018, he returned his focus to the stage, according to his website. He performed as Chef George in Will Snyder’s “How to Use a Knife” and Lawrence Garfinkle in “Other Peoples’ Money.”

By 2019, Mossler returned to Florida. He joined the cast of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” at FST. In early 2020, he also appeared in “The Nether” by Jen Haley and took on the titular role in Jeffrey Sweet’s “Kunster.”

He also joined FST’s education department, teaching writers and actors of all ages.